Book List of the Week: Carlo Ratti
By Steve Kroeter October 20, 2014
As founder and director of MIT’s SENSEable City Laboratory, Carlo Ratti investigates how digital technologies are changing urban living. Trained as an architect (he runs an architecture firm in Turin, Italy) and engineer, he also has several patents to his name. His Digital Water Pavilion, exhibited at the 2008 World Expo in Barcelona, was hailed by Time magazine as one of the Best Inventions of the Year.
Ratti is author of six books on big data and city planning, including Decoding the City, published this September by Birkhäuser.
His selections for Designers & Books “fundamentally challenge the status quo of architecture, urbanism, and design,” Ratti writes in the introduction to his book list. “They present new ingredients and recipes for future transformations in urban life and society.”
Among these are Lewis Mumford’s The City in History, from 1961 (“An expansive journey from the beginning of human habitation to the present,” Ratti comments), and Buckminster Fuller’s Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, from 1967 (“some of the sharpest design-based ideas for the contemporary global condition”). There is also Marguerite Yourcenar’s fictional Memoirs of Hadrian, from 1951, which describes the 2nd-century city of Antinopolis created by the Roman emperor Hadrian—“a city created,” Ratti comments, “not for efficiency, politics, or commerce, but for love.”
A recent title on Ratti’s book list is Anthony Hacker’s 2013 book, Smart Cities, about “how our cities are becoming computers ‘en plein air.’” Another is Rem Koolhaas’s Fundamentals, the official catalogue for the much debated 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale.
We’ll be giving away copies of Fundamentals (published by Marsilio, distributed by Rizzoli) as part of of a special “Design Books to Win” drawing in partnership with Knoll on October 29. To receive information about this giveaway and updates about “Design Books to Win, ”subscribe by e-mail, follow Designers & Books on Twitter and Facebook, or use the hashtag #bookstowin
Announcements
Now is Better by Stefan Sagmeister
Now is Better
By Stefan Sagmeister
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: October 2023
Combining art, design, history, and quantitative analysis, transforms data sets into stunning artworks that underscore his positive view of human progress, inspiring us to think about the future with much-needed hope.
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future
By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022
Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.
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Love Letter to a Garden by Debbie Millman
Love Letter to a Garden
By Debbie Millman
Contributions by Roxane Gay
Publisher: Timber Press
Published: April 15, 2025
From the award-winning artist, designer, and the host of the podcast Design Matters, Debbie Millman, this book tells the visual story of falling in love with gardening—and the philosophies that work conjures. Spread throughout are simple recipes using the garden’s ingredients from Millman’s wife, best-selling author Roxane Gay.
The Picture Book Book: The Art of Seymour Chwast by Seymour Chwast; curated by Steven Heller
The Picture Book Book: The Art of Seymour Chwast
By Seymour Chwast, curated by Steven Heller
Publisher: Gestalten
Published: June 2026
Seymour Chwast, legendary co-founder of Push Pin Studios, reinvented how we see and read picture books. The Picture Book Book gathers over 40 of his works, curated by Steven Heller, and offers a rare look at his playful, incisive approach to visual storytelling. From bold graphics to sly wit, Chwast’s books expanded the boundaries of design and children’s literature alike.
Seymour Chwast: The Works, edited by Steven Heller
Seymour Chwast: The Works
Edited by Steven Heller
Publisher: Prestel
Published: October 2026
Seymour Chwast’s work has shaped the look and language of American graphic design for more than seven decades. This expansive and visually rich volume — created in close collaboration with Chwast — presents the most comprehensive account of his life, ideas, and prolific creative output. Features a wealth of previously unpublished images and ephemera and a fold-out dust jacket with a collectible poster printed on the reverse. The book includes an afterword by Paula Scher.
Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition) by Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition)
By Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Publisher: Letterform Archives Books
Published: October 2023
This facsimile edition of Die Fläche, recreates every page of the formative design periodical in full color and at original size, accompanied by essays that contextualize the work, highlighting contributions by pathbreaking women, innovative lettering artists, and key practitioners of the new “surface art,” including Rudolf von Larisch, Alfred Roller, and Wiener Werkstätte founders Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann.
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